So bloody exhausted waiting for someone to die 4

@Guineapiggiesmalls I don't know if you've come back here but just to say I'm sorry for your loss. I hope you are finding some peace.

How absolutely bloody awful for you and your dad, @AgitatedGoose

❤️ ❤️ ❤️

I'm awake at 4.40am having spent the night turning over things in my mind.

Mum is now aspirating when drinking and taking liquid medication. She last ate on Tuesday I think.

She's in pain despite the morphine, so later I'll call District Nurses and hopefully they'll fit a driver and increase her dose.

I feel a sense of dread that this might not be the end, that somehow she'll rally just enough to keep going. I'm an atheist but I'm praying for this to be it, for her to now slip away without pain, and have a little thread of dignity at the end.

🙏 ❤️

My Dad is now eight days post stroke and in a pitiful state with no improvement. Over the last two days I’ve literally spent minutes with him. Yesterday it was because the ward thought they had a case of Norovirus and today it was because of a suspected Covid case. On each occasion they closed the ward to visitors. I dread Dad dying even though we weren’t close but he’s the only immediate family I have left. On the other hand I really wonder if I’m condemning him to a life of misery and pain. I’ve signed a Respect form as POA stating no DNR or PEG feed but the staff plan to feed him via a naso gastric tube. Dad developed aspiration pneumonia a few days ago which he’s being treated for but I really wonder if this is the right thing to do. Sadly Dad never made an advanced directive and we never discussed what he’d want if he became unwell.

Thank you all, I’m finding it helpful to write this down. It’s tough for us all and I have had time to catch up with earlier posts on this thread to gain understanding of how each of you are in this situation..
Dad arrived back home last night about 11 pm. He must have been exhausted. I’ve not rung Mum yet but will later. They’ve old fashioned landline phone only!
My dad does have a hospital style bed at home already thankfully, commode and special pressure cushion.

@DancingFerret I’d like to say I’m surprised but after our experiences of NHS care recently, I don’t think anything would shock me. Your family have been let down so badly, time after time.
I’m sorry for your loss. Take care of yourself, it’s such a lot to process x

@GoldenSpraint I totally understand and I wish for exactly the same for my mum. I hope the morphine helps keep things as peaceful as possible.

@Sunflower101 So tough for all of you, especially your mum. Are they providing a hospital bed and any other equipment for your Dad?

Sending much love @Sunflower101 ❤❤

An update on my Dad everyone.
He is due home this evening, he persuaded the consultant that he really wanted to go home. He won’t be on iv antibiotics, he will be back on oral ones. The end, the consultant said could be in a couple of days or at best a month.
My brother has been with him most of the day trying to see the discharge nurse, finally did at about 3 pm.
I’ve been up to his house with Mum to get the bedroom ready again and carers will come in 3 times a day I think. We set up the spare front room of their house as a bedroom. I live 2 hours away.
My dad wants my mum to sleep with him……she says she will try the sofa in his room. They’ve been married nearly 60 years.

((((( @AgitatedGoose )))))

I hope you can see him soon, hold his hand, and that he gets some peace.

♥️

@GoldenSpraint I fully support your wish for your Mum to be allowed to slip away quietly and with dignity.
My Dad is now six days post stroke, cannot open his eyes or do anything independently. It’s heartbreaking. On top of it all and at a time when what he most needs is a hand hold the ward have had a case of Norovirus and are closed to visitors.

Thanks so much @nodramamama xxx

@GoldenSpraint I hope things go as best they can, as you say dignity is so important. My mum collapsed suddenly last April, I am told it was quick, so she was spared forgetting our names/ongoing issues at least, as you say which could be months or years. Big hug.

Hi everyone

My mum's been given just in case morphine for pain relief. The district nurses are requesting an ongoing prescription, so I guess this is her moving to the next stage of living/dying.

She's been receiving palliative care for some time and recently has been sleeping a lot more, and when not sleeping just resting quietly.

I truly hope that she can sleep well now and slip away quietly soon.

Please don't say you're sorry to hear this. I'm glad that a vibrant lady who lived life to the full isn't going to be stuck in a palliative state for months or years, and that she can have some dignity at least.

♥️♥️♥️♥️

@DancingFerret I’m so sorry for your loss.

@DancingFerret So sorry to hear about your Dad and wishing you strength in the difficult and sad period ahead. I’m appalled at the idiot decisions hospitals make and the equally poor level of communication. My Dad is critically ill in hospital and it’s really hard work dealing with the staff.

My relative died in the small hours of this morning; it was always just a question of time and therefore expected, but the numb feeling is very real - the sheer finality of it.

Unfortunately, the hospital let us down again: one of the family went to visit him this afternoon, not knowing he had died because no-one remembered to tell us.

I feel so sad his final days were filled with unnecessary confusion and pain. If he'd not been discharged to his home, with its four flights of stairs, while clearly unable to walk, he wouldn't have broken his hip the next day and laid on the floor for goodness knows how long before his neighbour found him.

Sorry for the rant. I need to write it down.

@Guineapiggiesmalls So sorry to hear about the loss of your Mum. I think you did amazingly to manage everything. I hope you have support as it’s also really stressful arranging a funeral and sorting out all the death admin. Take care. x

@Guineapiggiesmalls I am so very sorry, please rest as well as you can and eat when you are able, I hope you have support all around you. It is a very confusing and stressful time, and for myself I felt quite guilty about occasional feelings of relief. Don't. Your mum is at peace now and you did so well.

@Guineapiggiesmalls so sorry for your loss.

@MrsFunnyFanny I’m so sorry you are having to deal with this. All I will say, as others with more direct experience will be able to offer better advice, is that you don’t have to agree to take your mum into your home. You are fully entitled to say “No” and that you are not able to care for her. They may offer you all sorts of support to aid her being in your home but sadly these promises often fail to materialise in full.

Thank you for the messages. My dad needed agreed to go to hospital because he needed intravenous antibiotics, the tablets weren’t working. He is now a shell of himself a few days later.
we are now on the case to try and get him home. When my Mum left him last night having tried to entice him to eat something he wanted to go home with her. It’s so sad.
Today, Monday, fresh week so see how it goes.
it feels like the hospital give up on people of a certain age and it’s not right. I’ve been through the experience with both my in laws receiving end of life care in hospital with morphine and driver and it’s not what my dad wants.

@Sunflower101 Sorry to hear about your Dad. It’s such a difficult situation for you. I’d also suggest you speak to the hospital discharge team. You might be surprised - where we are, it seems that they can’t wait to get patients off the wards and if that means sending them home, then so be it. I’m not sure how much help and support you’ll get though - but it sounds as though you’ve been doing everything yourselves anyway.
I hope they will agree with palliative care at home. I’d suggest pushing to make sure you have medications there to make your dad comfortable when he needs them.
I would like to do the same for my mum, but at the moment they’re insisting on this ridiculous feeding regime.
Let us know how you get on.

@Guineapiggiesmalls I’m so sorry for your loss. Take good care of yourself x

So sorry

My mum died early this morning, peacefully and with by her side.

I’ve been posting on this thread since the end of November and it has been invaluable during a traumatic time. I’m devastated and utterly exhausted right now.

Wishing all of you the best

@Sunflower101 Sadly the care in NHS hospitals is abysmal. I hope you manage to get something sorted out but have no idea how you’d go about this. It might help to speak to the discharge team at the hospital where your Dad is.